The incubators are built in remote fastnesses, where there is little
or no likelihood of their being discovered by other tribes. The
result of such a catastrophe would mean no children in the community
for another five years. I was later to witness the results of the
discovery of an alien incubator.

The community of which the green Martians with whom my lot was cast
formed a part was composed of some thirty thousand souls. They
roamed an enormous tract of arid and semi-arid land between forty
and eighty degrees south latitude, and bounded on the east and
west by two large fertile tracts. Their headquarters lay in the
southwest corner of this district, near the crossing of two of
the so-called Martian canals.

As the incubator had been placed far north of their own territory
in a supposedly uninhabited and unfrequented area, we had before us
a tremendous journey, concerning which I, of course, knew nothing.

After our return to the dead city I passed several days in
comparative idleness. On the day following our return all the
warriors had ridden forth early in the morning and had not returned
until just before darkness fell. As I later learned, they had been
to the subterranean vaults in which the eggs were kept and had
transported them to the incubator, which they had then walled up
for another five years, and which, in all probability, would not
be visited again during that period.

The vaults which hid the eggs until they were ready for the
incubator were located many miles south of the incubator, and would
be visited yearly by the council of twenty chieftains. Why they did